Chuck Grassley to Holder: Is DOJ Outsourcing Clemency Applications?

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the new Judiciary Committee chairman, is demanding details on what he calls the Justice Department's unprecedented relationship with outside groups that help prisoners get their sentences shortened.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holderposted online by Politico, Grassley suggests the outsourcing to the "Clemency Project 2014"— a consortium formed in response to calls from administration officials to help federal prisoners prepare clemency applications — may be both inappropriate and potentially unjust.

"I am unaware of any time in history in which the Department of Justice has delegated any of these core attributes of presidential power to private parties beholden to no one, and who have their own agendas that may not coincide with the President's," Grassley wrote, Politico reports.

"When private parties are wrongly given the ability to exercise any role in that public trust, then both the fairness of the pardon process and the appearance of its fairness are jeopardized."An Obama administration initiative announced last April encouraged nonviolent drug offenders in federal prison to seek clemency, andPolitico has reported the Clemency Project was formed to handle some 25,000 subsequent requests from inmates.

"Please tell me what formal arrangements exist between the Department and the Clemency Project 2014 to coordinate the processing of pardon applications, including what direction Clemency Project lawyers are given, what actions they take for the Department, and, how, if at all, Department of Justice lawyers consider the work product provided by these organizations or follow their recommendations," Grassley writes.

Grassley also asks if anyone in the Justice Department is aware of statements suggesting those who submit applications through the consortium will get "superior access to the Department's pardon process."

Grassley's letter refers to "pardon applicants," but the petitions prisoners are submitting are requests for commutations — a form of executive clemency that serves to shorten a prisoner's sentence, Politico notes.

A Justice official said last month there's no official relationship between the Clemency Project 2014 and the department, Politico reports.

"The Clemency Project is completely separate from us," the official said.

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, the new Judiciary Committee chairman, is demanding details on what he calls the Justice Department's unprecedented relationship with outside groups that help prisoners get their sentences shortened.In a letter to Attorney General Eric...